


Dating For the Romantically Inept

by kereia



Category: Primeval
Genre: Idiots in Love, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 23:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17414318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kereia/pseuds/kereia
Summary: When Abby gets injured, two knights in tactical vests offer to cook dinner for her.Unfortunately, they're more familiar with their guns than with a skillet.





	Dating For the Romantically Inept

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/gifts).



_Sorry, girl. Already made plans for tonight. Catch up on the weekend?_

Abby stared down at the text and sighed. Her fingers flew across the display.

_Sure. Have fun. Talk to you soon._

It had been a long shot, anyway. Just because her evening had opened up unexpectedly, didn't mean that she could expect her friends to have time for an impromptu girls night out. They had lives, just like she did.

Except that she couldn't really tell them much about what her life was about these days; what exactly her work entailed, or why she'd ended up going home early with a twisted ankle, shallow claw marks scattered across her neck and shoulders, a heavily bandaged thigh, and her hair still wet from the decontamination shower she'd taken at the ARC.

So, it was probably for the best, really, that her friends had other plans. She'd only have struggled lying to them about how she'd ended up hopping around on crutches anyway.

Still, the flat was oddly quiet without Connor playing his video games or filling the silence with his inane chatter. She'd never have thought that she would actually miss any of that, but Connor spending a week in Ibiza with his mates had taught her differently.

It wasn't that she was feeling lonely, exactly, she told herself. It was just that Connor could always be counted on to distract her from thoughts she didn't want to think.

When she'd read about the toxic waste scandal exposing the damage an international cooperation had caused to the reintroduction of the natterjack toad in Surrey — a project in which she'd participated through a former contact at the zoo — Connor had stopped her enraged outburst by fetching her boxing gloves and spending the next half hour shouting encouragements while she'd pummeled a punching bag.

When she'd listened to this month's third voice mail from her mother, who was trying to guilt her into attending her next garden party to meet the "charming, young man, I met at the luncheon last weekend. You know him. Theodora's son. The one you frightened half to death with your pet tarantula when you were five. He's a doctor, now, and he'd really love to meet you again," Connor had laughed himself silly when she'd told him how the tarantula had ended up on the guy's lap, and they'd spent the rest of the evening watching cheesy spider-themed horror movies.

And when Stephen and Becker had gotten trapped in a decomissioned frigate with a predator from the future, and Abby had been pretending very hard that she wasn't afraid for them, Connor had asked her to help him with the fiddly work of using the ships PA system to overload the predator's senses.

He'd been supposed to come home today, but when she'd called to fill him in earlier, he'd told her that he was going to stay a couple of days longer.

Apparently he'd met someone, which... good for him, really. He was a good guy. A good _friend._

Abby just wished that she could stop the voice in the back of her head from reminding her that it had been over a year since _she'd_  been seeing anyone, and while no one could blame her for crushing hard on two very tall, confident, and unreasonably hot co-workers, it was little wonder that she was getting frustrated with her inability to actually do something about those feelings or, as a last resort, just move on altogether.

Rolling her eyes at her own morose mood, Abby vigorously scratched her scalp. She'd washed her hair four times, but her skin was still itching from the ichor that had coated half of her body by the time Becker had carried her back through the anomaly. Stephen had mirrored his relived expression as he'd followed them, though at least neither of them had been injured, which had been the only thing important to her in that moment.

If she hadn't followed them through the anomaly, things would have turned out very differently.

Slumping back into the cushions, Abby contemplated her options. She'd forgotten to go grocery shopping, her fridge and pantry were nearly empty, and she was going to spend the evening alone. Her gaze drifted to the take-out menus pinned to the fridge. Italian, Chinese, or Indian? While she was mentally scrolling through the dishes and waiting for her stomach to muster enthusiasm for one of them, she reached for the crutches she'd been given at the ARC and hobbled towards the kitchen.

She was tired. She hadn't realized it before, but now that she was actually moving, she could feel the soreness in her shoulders and the sting in her thigh every time her muscles contracted. If her stomach didn't feel woefully empty, she would have fed Rex and curled up in her bed, calling it an early night.

Then again, it wasn't as if anyone would stop her from taking a nap while she waited for her pizza to arrive.

Abby paused in front of the fridge. Pizza it was, then. Mushrooms and onions and bell peppers... with extra cheese. She'd earned it.

She could practically feel her mouth watering at the thought as she snatched up the menu.

Her door bell rang, just as she was typing the number into her phone.

 

* * *

 

"What are you guys doing here?"

Abby braced one hand against the door frame while she frowned at Becker and Stephen who had unexpectedly shown up on her doorstep.

The men grinned at her.

"We thought we'd drop by and make sure you're comfortable." Becker said.

Stephen brandished a giant grocery bag and shouldered his way past her. "Yeah. We're going to take care of you tonight."

Utterly flummoxed, Abby hopped aside to let him pass. "You are?"

"Of course, we are."

"It's our way of saying 'thank you for saving our lives.'" Becker's hand on her elbow steadied her as she tried to avoid putting weight on her injured leg. While she was still gaping at him, he swept her off her feet and into his arms. Her crutches clattered to the floor.

Abby's surprised exclamation turned into a yelp when his fingers accidentally dug into the laceration along her thigh.

"Shit. Sorry." He hastily adjusted his grip, before carrying her bridal style towards the kitchen.

"I am perfectly capable of walking, you know."

Becker nodded. "I do." But instead of setting her back on her feet, he just winked at her.

Which was fine. Abby couldn't, in all honesty, say that she had any objections to being this close to him. It was, in fact, rather the opposite.

A scuttling noise on the banister upstairs heralded Rex's arrival. He'd spent the evening dozing on the window sill. Woken by the sudden commotion, he swooped down and landed on the kitchen counter, where he regarded the items Stephen was unpacking curiously.

Stephen tried to shoo him away. "Don't get excited. This isn't for you."

"He's just hungry," Abby interjected. "I haven't fed him, yet."

As if to prove her point, Rex started munching on a stray rucola leaf that had fallen on the counter.

"Rex. No."

Abby's shout came too late. A noise of dismay rumbled through the reptile's throat, and Rex shook his head, spitting the salad back onto the counter.

Stephen quickly snatched all other vegetables out of his reach.

With an irritated trumpet sound, Rex took to the air and landed on top of the kitchen cabinets, where he settled down to watch Stephen with a baleful eye.

"That lizard is plotting something," he said half-jokingly.

Becker sat her down on the counter. "Where do you keep his feed?"

"Up on the shelf by the window. There's a set of tongs, if you don't want to touch the bugs with your hands."

Becker shrugged. "No worries. I've touched worse."

"And on that appetizing note, let me draw your attention to tonight's menu," Stephen said.

He gestured to the spread on the counter.

Abby laughed. "And what are you planning to do with all of this?"

With a flourish, Stephen pulled several sheets of paper from the back pocket of his denims. "I printed out the recipes from Gordon Ramsay's website. We're going to spoil you tonight."

"I'm impressed. I didn't even know you could cook."

Stephen shrugged. "Of course, we can cook. I mean, how hard can it be?"

 

* * *

 

By the time the pizza arrived, the smoke had cleared from the kitchen, though the pungent odor of burned meat still lingered in the air. While Stephen had rushed around the apartment to open all the windows, Becker had deposited a very disgruntled Rex in his travel box, which he'd stashed on the floor close to a window.

"I am really sorry about this," Stephen said for the fourth time, while Becker paid the delivery boy.

"Stop apologizing," Abby said. "We caught it early enough, and Connor and I managed to burn milk in the microwave plenty of times. Just help me peel some oranges. We can put them in bowls along with some ground coffee. That will help with the worst of the smell."

"On it."

Becker deposited the pizza box on the coffee table. "Let me help Stephen with the oranges. You can pick a movie for us to watch."

"I almost forgot," Stephen said. "We brought some with us. They're in the bag. Hold on." He riffled through the grocery bag and extracted a handful of slim, blue cases, which he pressed into her hand, before he returned to the kitchen.

Leaning back into the cushions, Abby perused her options. A romantic comedy, a historical drama, another romantic comedy, and a _third_ romantic comedy.

"Are you guys sure you want to watch any of these?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't we?" Stephen asked with a too bright smile.

Becker snorted softly while he studiously kept peeling oranges with one of her kitchen knives. "You don't like romantic movies?" he asked when she let the silence linger just a little too long.

He looked up at her, and there was something in his eyes that made Abby's heart beat faster.

 _You're imagining things_ , she told herself.

"I do, actually," she admitted. And she did. There were several comedies and historical dramas amidst her and Connor's expansive horror and action movie collection. It was just that she was a lot more picky about romances than she was about giant arachnids terrorizing small towns in the middle of nowhere.

Admittedly, it also ticked her off a little that Stephen and Becker simply assumed that, being a girl, she would prefer a chick flick to the latest superhero movie. 

"Alright, then," she decided and arbitrarily picked one of the discs. She doubted that Stephen and Becker would have any fun watching it, but if they wanted to suffer, so be it. They had burned one of her pots after all, and Abby was not above getting a little revenge.

 

* * *

 

"See, what I don't understand is, why would she forgive him?" Stephen asked quietly.

"Forget _him_ ," Becker replied, his voice equally low. "Why would she forgive her father? That's what I want to know."

Abby made a contented noise and snuggled deeper into Stephen's shoulder. The movie hadn't really been able to hold her attention, and she'd started to drift off mere minutes after she'd eaten her fourth slice of pizza.

The couch was comfortable, and sitting between Stephen and Becker, she felt relaxed and warm now that the windows where closed again. The acrid stench had either dissipated, or she'd gotten so used to it that she didn't smell it anymore, though the flavor of oranges, coffee, and melted cheese mingled with the fresh, woodsy scent of Stephen's cologne.

"Well, he _is_ her father, and she keeps saying that they're close, so..."

"That just makes it worse," Becker said. "If _my_ father raised me to take over the family business, and I spent two decades learning it from the ground up, I'd be seriously pissed off if he called me into his office out of blue and went 'Sorry, dear. Decided to sell it to this random fellow, instead. He doesn't have much experience, so you'll have to help him get everything sorted, but I still think he's the better choice.'"

"Your father calls you 'dear?'"

"Shut it." Abby felt Becker's body jerk against her leg as he moved, and a second later a dull thud signaled the impact of a pillow with Stephen's face. "You know what I mean."

The pillow fell onto the top of her own head and then slid down her back. Abby stretched, reluctantly blinking her eyes open while she yawned. There was a crick in her neck, and she moved her shoulders trying to relieve the sting.

"Is it over already?" she asked sleepily.

"Yeah," Becker grinned. "Sleep well?" His fingers encircled her bare ankle, and his thumb was rubbing gently across her skin. It was distracting. In a good way.

Another yawn overcame her, and she quickly covered her mouth with her hand. "Sorry, it's been a long day."

"That's our cue to leave then," Stephen said, though he didn't seem in any hurry to move.

"You don't have to. We can watch another movie, if you like."

Becker shook his head. "We almost burned down your kitchen and kept you up when you're injured and need to rest. We don't want to make it any worse."

"Tonight probably already tops your list of worst dates ever," Stephen laughed.

Abby craned her neck to look up at him. The sudden pull on her sore shoulder made her wince. "Date? Hold on. This was a _date_?"

Stephen froze. A look of panic flew across his face. "Uhm... kind of?"

"Are you guys serious? You didn't even think to ask?" There was a part of her that was annoyed, but she dissolved into laughter anyway. "It would have been really nice to know."

"Well, you see, Connor said–"

"Stephen!"

He fell silent at Becker's sharp tone, but Abby had heard enough. "Connor said what?" she demanded.

There was a hint of color in Becker's cheeks which definitely hadn't been there before.

"He may have mentioned that you need looking after tonight," he mumbled.

"Looking after?" she groused. "I am not an invalid. I'll have you know that I'm perfectly capable of burning my kitchen down on my own, thank you very much."

"He didn't mean it like that. He just called us to say that since we haven't been able to work up the nerve to ask you out, this was our chance to do it."

Abby's heart sped up as she looked from one to the other. "You wanted to ask me out? Both of you?"

Becker nodded sheepishly. "We know it's a bit unconventional, and we didn't want to make things awkward at work..."

"... and now we've made a mess of it, anyway," Stephen finished his sentence while running a frustrated hand through his short hair.

Abby bit her lower lip and made a decisions. "Make it better, then."

Becker and Stephen exchanged a bewildered glance.

"Better how?" Becker asked hesitantly.

"Well, for starters, I could really use a good, thorough back rub, because my shoulders are killing me. Though we'd have to go up to the bedroom for that," she said with a cheeky grin.

Another silent exchange passed between the two men. This one was much more loaded.

"We can– uh, we can definitely do that," Becker finally said. His smile was endearingly shy.

Stephen's hands came up around her waist, and when Abby leaned back into his chest, he wriggled his fingers into her hips making her squirm and bark out a laugh.

"These are magic hands," he said cockily before he pressed a kiss to the side of her neck.

"Oh, really?"

She chuckled, pried his hands off her, and reached for Becker, who eagerly crawled over to her. His knees bracketed her thighs by the time she looped her arms around his neck. "Play your cards right, and I'll give you two the rest of the night to prove that," she said softly, before she pulled Becker into a kiss.

It was slow and exploratory, a little hesitant as first kisses often were, but with Becker's soft lips sliding against her own, and Stephen's hands caressing her stomach while his mouth nibbled at her neck, Abby had little doubt that she would quickly forget the strains of the day.

She also resolved to do something nice for Connor when he came back. He really was a good friend.

 


End file.
